Exploring pre-existing immunity in cancer immunotherapy trials

One of the intriguing themes that emerged recently at ASCO from several cancer immunotherapy trials centred around whether any elicited immune responses actually correlated with outcomes and if so, why and how?

Gems from the ASCO17 poster hall

It sounds easy in practice, yet in reality the topic has been quite a controversial one that has been hotly debated for a while.

With a wealth of new cancer immunotherapy trials now undwerway and initial results trickling out, how do we start to make sense of the information and what do we learn that might be useful going forward for future trials and the field as a whole?

With the help of a renowned cancer immunologist, we explored this concept in more detail to determine what can be gleaned from the data available.

Today, we look at part one of our latest mini-series, with the second part to follow later this week.